The present invention relates to an articulated industrial robot, that is, an industrial robot which has at least one articulated arm, the distal end of which has an articulated wrist with a plurality of degrees of freedom. Articulated robots are differentiated from so-called "cartesian" robots which have slides mounted for sliding relative to each other along mutually perpendicular straight lines.
More particularly, the present invention relates to an articulated robot of the known type which includes at least one first body and one second body supported by the first body for rotation about an axis, the first body including a load-bearing structure on which a motor unit for rotating the second body is mounted and a rigid outer casing.
In a conventional articulated robot structure, the first body and the second body may be constituted, for example, by a first movable robot arm and a second arm which in turn is rotatable on an end of the first arm. Still according to the prior art, each arm essentially comprises the following components: a load-bearing structure, typically constituted by a steel frame, for example, in the form of a beam with an H-section, a motor unit for driving the movable part carried by the arm, the motor unit including at least one electric motor and one mechanical transmission whose support structures are fixed, usually by bolts, to the load-bearing frame, and a rigid outer casing which surrounds the structure constituted by the load-bearing frame and the motor unit mounted thereon.